Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 PRO – Review

Even though using a computer keyboard is much better than clacking on a typewriter, its still a very time consuming activity. A speech recognition software seems to be the only solution and that’s where Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking scores. It has been a game changer in the speech recognition software market since its arrival and is spearheading the eco system with major improvements with each version.

Available in four versions, we reviewed the premium one. Nuance has added support for Apple hand-held devices and extended it to the Android platform as well, making dictating through your mobile’s mic a reality. Additionally, Nuance has added support for third party bluetooth headsets which will make wireless dictacting more comfortable. They have also started supporting popular web mail clients like Gmail and Hotmail.

The product comes with the CD, a printed manual and a headset-HS-GEN-C. The headset is not as comfortable as expected but is usable. Once installed, the software leads you to a training session where you are asked to read certain paragraphs aloud for around five minutes. You need to read a bit loud so that the software can understand your accent.

We used the software with Windows 8 and worked fine. We found the software very accurate and the strong utility tools were handy to use. The upgrade is good, even for first time users. The product is worth buying, though we would have liked if Nuance could bundle a better headphone, which would be kinder on our ears.